Interviews with Arundhati Roy On Indian Actions In Occupied Kashmir

AMYGOODMAN:
As we continue our conversation with the author and activist Arundhati
Roy, she is now joined in Chicago by Sanjay Kak, a New Delhi-based
documentary filmmaker. His most recent film is Jashn-e-Azadi, or How We Celebrate Freedom. He’s the author of Until My Freedom Has Come: The New Intifada in Kashmir.We welcome you in joining Arundhati in this discussion. Can you talk
about, Arundhati first, the lay of the land, why you have become so
interested in this issue, and why you’re traveling to the United States
to speak about it?ARUNDHATIROY:
No, it is—well, I suppose if one were to explain the situation in the
simplest possible terms, the struggle for self-determination in Kashmir
began in 1947, at the time of India’s independence and the partition of
India and Pakistan. And Kashmir, which used to be an independent
kingdom, was more or less torn apart during partition, half occupied by
Pakistan and the other half occupied by India. And it is a country with
a—I mean, it’s a state with a predominantly Muslim population, but had a
Hindu ruler, who was supposed to have acceded to India, though there
was supposed to be a plebiscite after 1947, which never took place.And today Kashmir is the most densely militarized zone in the world.
India has something like 700,000 security forces there. And in the '90s,
early ’90s, the fight became—turned into an armed struggle, and since
then, something like 68,000 people have died, maybe 100,000 tortured,
10,000 disappeared, you know? I mean, we all talk a lot about Chile,
Pinochet. These numbers are far greater. And this is just the crude end
of it, you know? Can you imagine living in a place where there are so
many soldiers, you can't—you go out of your door, you come out, come to a
barrier. Every aspect of life, whether it’s joyous or otherwise, is
sort of diverted through the military.And it’s become a very ugly—an ugly stain on people who would like to
be—have some self-respect. And I’m talking about Indians, you know, I’m
talking about somebody like myself, that it makes me feel that it’s
such a morally reprehensible thing to be living in a country that is
doing this to a people and keeping—everyone is keeping quiet about it.
There are very, very few people in India who would say anything about
this. I mean, we hear about conscientious objectors in Iraq, in Vietnam,
but in India there has never, ever been a conscientious objector in the
army. And what they are doing to people is terrible.

AMYGOODMAN:
We turn to the award-winning Indian author Arundhati Roy, facing
possible arrest in Indian on sedition charges after recent comments she
made about Kashmir.Earlier today, an Indian politician from the right-wing BJP
party filed a written complaint against Roy after she publicly
advocated for Kashmir independence and challenged India’s claim that
Kashmir is a, quote, "integral part of India." The area of Kashmir has
been at the center of a decades-long dispute between India and Pakistan.
Arundhati Roy made the comment at a conference organized to call on
India to formally admit that Kashmir is an internationally recognized
dispute. If charged and convicted of sedition, Arundhati Roy could face
up to life in prison.On Tuesday, she defended her statements made at the conference. She
wrote, quote, "I said what millions of people here say every day...I
spoke about justice for the people of Kashmir who live under one of the
most brutal military occupations in the world."Roy went on to write, quote, "Pity the nation that has to silence its
writers for speaking their minds. Pity the nation that needs to jail
those who ask for justice, while communal killers, mass murderers,
corporate scamsters, looters, rapists, and those who prey on the poorest
of the poor, roam free."Well, last month, I had a chance to interview the author of The God of Small Things,
Arundhati Roy, about Kashmir. We spoke in London. She began by
describing how Kashmir is the unfinished business of the partition of
India in 1947.

Quotes

"Make peace with the universe. Take joy in it. It will turn to gold. Resurrection will be now. Every moment, a new beauty." - Rumi

"God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that." - Joseph Campbell

"Naturally, every age thinks that all ages before it were prejudiced, and today we think this more than ever and are just as wrong as all previous ages that thought so. How often have we not seen the truth condemned! It is sad but unfortunately true that man learns nothing from history." - Carl Jung

"Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society." - George Washington

“If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it's not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.” - Dalai Lama

“Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought! Why do you stay in prison. When the door is so wide open?” ― Rumi